


Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore

by middlemarch



Series: Mercy March [4]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Boston, F/M, Gen, Marriage, Post-War, Wedding Night, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:16:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6898138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First and second; the implications of a change in position.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmadelosnardos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadelosnardos/gifts).



They had married in late April, very quietly, a few weeks after Lincoln was killed. The formal engagement had been brief—the divorce had come through early in March and they had not planned an elaborate ceremony. Both having been wed before, they wished more for the marriage itself than anything else. It had been a curious wedding. They had held the service in the former parlor of Mansion House, officiated by the chaplain who had at first demurred, pointing out he had little experience in this role. Mary had not felt she could wear her best dress, as tradition called for, as it was too gay and bright for the national mourning they’d all undertaken. She had chosen her best mourning dress, one she had not worn at Mansion House under Miss Dix’s directive, a dark grey silk, lightened with fine white frills at the cuffs and collar, the buttons carved jet. She had carried flowers with her prayer book, a nosegay of peonies and stock that Emma had presented to her with apologies she could not attend the wedding itself “my mother said it wouldn’t be proper, but she said I might give you this.” The wedding was very solemn and short. The parlor was bare of any ornament or decoration other than the dusted books on the shelves, the worn sofas pushed aside. There was only the sunlight streaming in the room, lighting motes as they danced and turned in the air, and the gleam it lit on the buttons of the officers, Jedediah by the chaplain’s side, Hale and McBurney standing witness. Mary thought of the garlands she and Caroline had woven when she married Gustav, homely and cheerful draping the altar, the few pews of the country church. The women’s bonnets had been trimmed with ribbons and silk flowers, a few with a clutch of feathers, colorful as a spring meadow. 

Her second wedding was held in the first full bloom of a Virginia spring, but the tenor was of the darkness-- of shadows in the spines of the books, the approach of winter in the men’s woolen uniforms. All was sober, even grim, except for the look in Jed’s eyes, his joy pure and entire, unmarred by the divorce, the war’s end, the loss of Lincoln. He cared only for her, saw only her face. She felt his restraint, knew the current that ran through him was matched in her. They spoke their vows, not easily, but with conviction; her voice betrayed her tenderness but Jed was utterly formal, his hands steady as he put the gold ring on her finger. He did not release her hand then but held it, the warmth of their mutual grasp warming the gold, the cabochon emerald impervious. His palm against hers was bolder than his kiss. Hale had shaken his head at the end, offering his best wishes half-heartedly, saying “Foster, I think you’ve gotten better than you deserve” and Jed had laughed aloud, unable to be annoyed or offended, replying, “For once, Hale, I entirely agree with you.” McBurney had been more courteous, had bowed and shaken hands and given her her new name, “Mrs. Foster, my very best wishes” and she had smiled to hear it. The chaplain had only said, “May God bless you both” with the gravitas of a much older man and the sincerity that was what made him Henry Hopkins. She had stood very still next to Jed, afraid that if she moved, she would fly about the room, down the hallways, her feet winged and Jed in turn would catch her to him, his passionate exuberance released completely, without regard for the men beside them, the hospital, the national pall.

They had made arrangements to leave Alexandria for Boston the next day. Mary had been eager to go at once, Jed’s commission resigned, but he was unwilling to spend their wedding night in whatever poor lodging could be found where the crowded trains switched. Jed had been somewhat apologetic about the lack of a wedding trip to Saratoga or Newport, but Mary had only laughed a little. She had not found the lack had any impact on her first marriage and assured him that she was content to be only with him, wished most that they might set up a home in Boston as quickly as possible. In her heart, she admitted she would have liked to have been married from Caroline’s house in Boston, and then to have been able to start their marriage immediately in their own home. But Caroline was packing up her house and four young children for a move to Chicago and she and Jed wouldn’t brook any further delay. 

She had been deeply touched when they retired to Jed’s room that night after a light supper and found it spotless, the linens fresh upon the wide bed. Another bouquet of stock in a jug sat on the chest beside the bed, its heady fragrance filling the room. There was a tray laid with a carafe of wine and a covered plate of what she suspected were Sister Isabella’s special almond cakes, her carnelian rosary that Mary had once admired richer than a scatter of rose petals against the white cloth. A pair of tapers in chipped Dresden candlestick holders, relics of a more prosperous incarnation of Mansion House, were tall on the mahogany bureau, ready to be lit. Their trunks were stowed in a corner, traveling straps buckled. Jed’s was more imposing, hers smaller with Gustav’s crest faded on the arched lid.

She had looked at Jed in happy surprise and he said, “Emma, that is, Miss Green and Sister Isabella and Matron Brannan had asked if they might. I thought you would not mind, Molly. It is little enough, much less than you deserve.”

She had moved toward him then, swiftly and directly as she might now she was his wife, had placed a hand on his chest where his heart beat and said, “What more would I want than to have dear friends prepare my marriage-bed for me and with such care? I have all I deserve, the affection of my friends, the best wishes of the officers, and, I think, I am in your good graces for a little while, at least.” He had responded as she expected then and had bent down to kiss her, one arm holding her so tightly she felt each of his brass buttons pressed against her. She hadn’t missed any luxury that night. Being in his arms, the feel of his mouth upon hers, at her breasts, his body laid along hers, had been all she desired. His face in his abandon, the words he whispered to her, “love” and “Molly” the precursors to “now” and “more,” her sharp cry of pleasure that he swallowed as he lay deep within her, his hand tangled in the curls loose upon his pillow—these were more than she had expected to desire, a bounty unimagined. She felt herself a sybarite as he woke her again with the taste of the tart red wine on his lips, held the cup to her to drink, and caressed her so delicately and for so long that she entreated him to gratify them both again and again; she heard herself pleading that he should never stop and he had managed to raise her hips to him and yet so clearly say, as he spent, “I’ll never stop, you’re mine now, Molly, always, my wife, my most beautiful girl, oh God! to feel you and know you are mine!” and then gave a great, jubilant shout before he gathered her to him again and they slept.

The pleasure of their joy expressed had colored every day since; she had felt it even during the long, dirty trip home, had been unable to keep the smile from her face, her gloved hand from his. It had been much the same the past month, as they returned to Boston and the brownstone he had quickly found and bought for them. It overlooked the Common, a very fine house he had thought nothing of and she a great deal. He had been busy at his work, lecturing medical cadets and setting up his practice at the hospital with the assistance of his good friend, Dr. Harris. He’d announced he would devote a few hours a week to the freemen’s clinic her friend Miss Watson had organized and she had felt the rightful pride of a wife in her admirable husband. She had set to feathering their nest with determination and alacrity, ordering furniture for the rooms, finding a housekeeper-cook and maid; he had grinned to see her so cheerfully diligent at her domestic helm. He had given her the account book and told her the allowances for the household and for herself and she had protested, “It is too much! Why, even half that would be more than enough!” He had reached for her fluttering hands and said, “It is the same I have always given” and “Molly, let it be easy for you then, let there be nothing wanting and even more than you need” and finally, “You will decide it yourself, but I expect you will use at least some of the funds to keep us in the latest texts from Paris and Vienna, if you will not spend it on bonnets,” and then he had put a warm kiss in the center of her palm and folded her hand over it. He’d given her such a sweet smile then. The number of ways he found to show her his gladness seemed infinite. She realized how unhappy he had been so much of the time in Alexandria, how even his humor had drawn from such constant darkness. He was lively now, he played and jested, caught her round the waist and swung her into the steps of a waltz as he walked to their front door. She knew it would not be this way always, but now she reveled in being the cause of such unmitigated delight. It seemed she had never made anyone so happy before and she felt the glow of it from dawn till she slept with in his arms, her hand against the heart hers beat for.

Her days were full in a way they had been at Mansion House; there was always a task to turn her hand to. But as in her first marriage and not her career as Head Nurse, she had respite when she needed it—there was a quiet room to sit in, although insufficiently furnished yet, with a novel by Trollope or Balzac waiting, her page marked. Where before, respite had been marked by cessation-- reflection only or a walk in the garden, revisiting a much-read book, a spare tranquility—now, there was abundance. Her new housekeeper, Mrs. Hutchins, was always eager to present her with some wholesome little meal or a fresh pot of tea. Yet, she had a bit of Matron Brannan’s acerbic authority, ready to tell Mary when the menu would not work, the fishmonger’s wares not fit for the table, the hall chimney needed sweeping right away or how she had turned an obstreperous tinker from the door “bold as brass he was, but quick work I made of it, Mrs. Foster!” The little maid Patty was shy but easily instructed. Mary thought with heartier food and under Mrs. Hutchins’s firm but kind hand, Patty would come into her own, a great asset to them, saving Mary the work of scurrying to fetch things and generally setting the house to rights even as Mary first noticed disarray. She was a child yet though, with her appetite for sweets and wonder at the fine Morgan horses that pranced down the Common ahead of the neighbors’ carriages. 

Mary learned she enjoyed guiding Patty with care and humor, in a similar manner she’d used with the younger soldiers, but with so much greater ease without the brutalities of war. She had found her one day preening before the new looking-glass in the front hall, adjusting her little white cap and its fringe of tatted lace, and had only to say her name “Patty” before the barrage of apology started. She had issued a gentle remonstrance and then had enjoyed searching the city shops for a little tortoiseshell brush and hand mirror she had given Patty with her wages that week. How Jed had laughed to hear the story, to hear her descriptions of Patty before the glass and way her face blushed red as a rose, her freckles lost in the high color, so shocked with the gift in its striped wrapping and ribbon. “I could see how she held herself so stiff, there was a moment she meant to hug me before she recalled where she was,” she had told him, sitting up in their bed as he undressed, prepared to refresh himself before bed with the water from the pitcher and the cloth laid beside for him.

“Oh, Molly, what a gentle mistress you are! She must have expected her ears to be boxed or a sharp word, no custard for her sweet—and you reward her instead with a gift! Shall we have a vain little miss now, too busy regarding herself in the glass, to make sure the floors are swept and the fires laid?” Jed said, his uncritical enjoyment clear. He had slipped his braces down and was unbuttoning his white lawn shirt, not slowly but not in a rush either. He had understood how she liked to watch him thus, the transformation from Dr. Foster to the Jedediah who was only her husband and lover. 

“I think rather her little vanities will be contented now she has her own glass in her own room. She is only as we all are, seeking to please the world and herself with her appearance, though I hope, by-and-by, to teach her the value of her quick mind and hands. Fourteen is a difficult age, still so much a child but expected to have a woman’s morals and standards and no mother to set her upon the correct path should she stray. I think we may do better for her. I would not have our house filled with servants who are unhappy and prone to wrong-doing, seeking always to skimp or deceive because we have not taken enough care with them,” she replied. There was a soft breeze that passed through the window, carrying with it the scent of the lilacs from the small yard and she thought, perhaps the green hint of a rain to come. The air was cool on her neck, her long curls caught back with a bit of silk ribbon. Jed had complained when she wore two long braids to bed he felt he played the elderly, salacious bridegroom in a melodrama, so she left it looser and spent more time in her morning toilette, combing out the tangles.

“And here is the return of the estimable Head Nurse—I cannot imagine how quickly I’d forgotten what an excellent manager you are, Molly, though there is less to occupy you here than Mansion House. Do you feel the lack?” he asked, as he now lifted the coverlet to lie beside her. The room had darkened but there was still a faint light from the sky and she quickly found she could see his face, the way his hands played with the light quilt spread over them. They often talked this way at night if they were not already swept away; it could be as little as Mary looking at him over her shoulder or grazing his fingers with hers at the table or in the hall and he would be upon her, his mouth urgent, hands seeking her shape through bodice and petticoats, his voice breaking through his kisses “How many times did I want you this way! How many times did I tell myself ‘no, do not touch’ and now to have you so close! If I had known, I could not have resisted you, Molly, nor myself.” She would touch his face then, acknowledgement and assurance in one, though she knew he would not have touched her thus then, as he would never had risked harming her in any way, in body or soul. 

This was a night for calmer discussion, a connection they both enjoyed as much as their passion. He would tell her of his work, patients he had seen and the lectures given. Some of the medical cadets reminded her of poor Mr. Squivers in his retelling while she noticed there were others he spoke of with respect and an excitement, the teacher sparked to greater heights by the pupil. There were several other physicians besides Dr. Harris whom he consulted with, seeing them as a match in erudition and innovation, a community of peers, unlike feckless Hale and managerial McBurney. Jonathan was his especial favorite though, a colleague and comrade of old; they shared their medical interests but also a history, the times when they were younger men and did foolish things they now looked back on with indulgent fondness, each more charmed by the other’s foibles and flaws than his own. She had found Jonathan a pleasant dinner companion, willing to ask her questions and wait for her response; she was not dismissed for simply being a woman though her skill in nursing and medicine was less to him than her reading in German philosophy or her opinion on the latest installment of Dickens or Trollope.

She felt she had less to tell, her sphere smaller now, though he listened well to her recounting the domestic improvements she had embarked upon, the news of their neighborhood, her calls, and always what she was reading, whom she had written to, what letters she had had. She had been a little surprised at his enthusiastic encouragement of her correspondence with Emma Green, thinking he might wish to forget Mansion House now. He had told her “Oh no, I think it is very good you should write to her—you have shared something so important with her and also, her nature is such that it brings out so much that is good in you-- but I have noticed, she is strong-willed, would often challenge you as well and how you rose to that also. I will like to know she is your correspondent, that there is another way this War ended, an unexpected binding.” She worried a little he would grow bored with her and he had only said, “I do not think it possible, Molly—your mind is not simple, your thoughts and your feelings have a depth I have only recently begun to truly appreciate without this battle or that crisis to distract me. I think sooner you will grow bored with me, a dull medical man obsessed with this patient and that, the hospital grind. I will need to work hard to stay your equal, to read what you have read from the Continent or be a willing student as you enlighten me.” She had chuckled then at the image of him at her knee, listening as she read to him in German or French before a fire; she had told him her vision and he’d said, “Oh, you may speak French to me before a fire whenever you wish, my Molly, only you must be in your silk chemise and you must let me stop your mouth _avec mes baisers __.”_

They had spoken while the white lilac scented the room, of the household, the expected arrival of a new pair of armchairs for his study, a dinner she planned for Dr. Harris and Reverend Abbott and his wife. She had told him how she missed Mansion House a little, but could not wish a return and there was no equivalent for her in Boston, certainly since they had married. He had asked, a little plaintively, as she had thought he might, “Was it worth it then?” and she had given him her answer “Yes, you foolish man, a thousand times yes as you well know” with a teasing kiss. He was tired and settled then, his arm around her. It was a Friday night and she knew his Saturday lectures were later in the morning, would give them time for a leisurely awakening.

It was earlier than she expected when she became aware of him nestled behind her. Dawn had just broken, the sun not yet gold in the sky. The light was still silvery as if the moon held sway. She lay on her side and she felt his hand gentle along her bare arm, his breath on her cheek and neck. He was close all along her, his bare chest pressed to her back, his knees bent, tucked next to hers. She woke more fully, felt his cock hard against her round bottom, the small motions he was making with his hips against her and she smiled at his irrepressible desire. His hand slipped beneath her arm and he laid his palm flat against her belly. She felt her wait had been tease enough, started to shift so that he could move above her, to lie between her legs and raise the hem of the nightdress but he pressed his hand against her a little more firmly and said quietly, “Like this, Molly,” and moved his hand from her belly to her thigh, bunching the muslin to bare her skin. She held quite still, uncertain and after a few moments, he noticed she had not moved.

“Do you not want to?” he asked, his voice even, the tone allowing either response.

“I, I don’t know, how will you?” she broke off, not ashamed but shy, suddenly a flash of the virginal Mary she had been so long ago.

“Have you never? I had thought, surely—that is, I thought you would like it but we needn’t, not at all or not like this,” he said. His voice was undemanding but she felt his body behind her, the increase of his desire as they spoke of love.

“Please, then, I would like you to—show me?” she said. His hand was intent at her thigh then, in an instant; she felt all his attention on her. He lifted the hem again, settled it about her waist and grazed the dark curls between her legs as he dropped his hand back to her leg. She felt his mouth warm and open on her neck, where it joined her shoulder. He shifted her leg forward, lifted it up a little; she followed his movements as if in a dance, alert to where he wanted her to be. Her breath came more quickly and he heard it.

Now, he slid down just a little behind her and touched her quim where he had revealed it, his fingers sure and deft, slick from her. He lifted his mouth from her skin to murmur, “Delicious Molly, may I now?” and he waited for her to say “Yes, Jedediah, yes” and not only nod her assent. Then, something sudden—he moved and his cock was in her, the redoubled heat of him a terrific thrill and then more, his fingers parted her labia and went directly to her clitoris, the little delicate touches he knew she preferred at the start. She gasped then, the sensations unimagined, overwhelming. He somehow held her tighter, wriggled his other arm around her and she let her head fall back against him. His mouth was right beside her ear. His beard tickled her, just a little, but she did not want to laugh. He touched the plump lobe briefly, then began talking to her, his voice barely strained as he moved within her, his rhythm confident and bold.

“I had not thought I could surprise you, but this is a surprise to you, isn’t it? What other pleasures have you not tasted yet? You are only my wife now, aren’t you, only mine and oh! I am so happy to share it all with you, Molly, I cannot wait to hear what new sound you may make, what you will cry out to me,” as she was panting lightly, his fingers still stroking her without, his cock within, moving so readily, so easily, “Oh, lovely, what a sweet quim you have, you are so good, so good and I long for this every day, the more I have of you… I leave our house knowing you are here, waiting for me and you will be in my bed every night, every morning, but I think now, where else may I love you? When the house is asleep, shall we sneak down before the fire so I may kiss you there, your legs spread open for me before the hearth, the firelight on your bare skin… or shall I raise your skirts the moment I close this bedroom door?” She was crying out now, little fierce cries as she neared her climax. Her heart raced with every word he uttered, her yearning for him greater and greater as he gave himself to her wholly, perfectly. He also moved faster, now thrusting within her, his passion evident, unselfconscious. His other hand squeezed her waist. “My lovely girl, God! You feel so good, and I love you, I love knowing that more than my mouth on you, my hands, and my cock in you, oh Molly! It is my voice in your mind you want, it is always this way-- I have only to talk to you, to tell you how I love you, oh how you feel, how much I want you—that is what you want the most, that only I can give you, only me whispering in your ear all the delicious, dirty things I want to do with you, my wife, my Molly.”

He had driven her beyond to a place she had not been, the pleasure suffusing her. She felt as if she were lit up with a nearly blasphemous, erotic Light, as if every element of her soul was paired with every element of her body and together they ignited with a flame that was only her most joyful love for him. Still he chased her and still he thrust deep, his thighs fast against the ripe curve of her bottom. He had run out of words now and only breathed roughly in her ear and she wanted him so much to join her. She spoke as she had not before, “Come now, Jedediah, oh! You must, you must feel how much I want you, how my flesh yearns for you, I am made only for you, for this, I long for you… for you to come to me always, oh, my sweet man, please, please, love,” and he shuddered behind her, once, twice, and spent, and dropped his head to her shoulder. And then, as he knew she preferred, he did not pull back right away, but held her close, let her enjoy his whole cock still in her quim. He stroked his hand down along her smooth leg, reached up beneath her nightdress to gently touch the fullness of her breast. She felt him damp behind her, felt the sweat that had collected beneath her breasts, in the hollows behind her knees. Their scents mingled in the fresh dawn air, even more redolent when he withdrew from her at last and she felt his semen still hot on her thighs; she had a sudden wish, like a shock, that she had conceived a child from him, though she was so relaxed and satisfied she had not imagined she would form a want for anything else in the moment. 

He lay back then against the pillow and she shifted to face him. His eyes were bright and he seemed younger, even with the grey in his beard, at his temples; he looked at her contemplatively, then said, “Sweetheart. That was, I could not have dreamed… But, I think we must talk about this, Molly. You will, I think, you must decide how much, what you want to tell me. And you may ask me anything you wish, I will answer.”

She regarded him, her husband, lying in their bed. The sheet was all tangled, shadows collecting in its folds, somehow darker shades of white and not darkness itself. She saw his body-- his chest with its scattered dark curls, one leg uncovered, muscled thigh and knee, calf to sturdy ankle, his foot elegant, a master’s work. He had one arm behind his head, an angle of repose, but he balanced it with the intent look he gave her. She looked again at the bed with its curving mahogany headboard, the carving at the corners where posts shot towards the ceiling like spires. It was new and it was the only piece of furniture he had specifically requested when she sat to talk with him about the house. She had been hesitant to mention the crates of furniture she had in storage from her home with Gustav. But he had been matter-of-fact and interested, had said, “Of course, Molly, you should have it all as you want. In fact, I would like to see what you have stored away rather than the indifferent pieces the house came furnished with. I would ask, I would like us to have our own bed, one that we have shared with each other only, just us two.”

She had nodded then, relieved that he was not distressed at the prospect of bringing her furniture, the remnants of her first marriage, into their home. She kept only a few of the ornaments when the crates arrived. She wished to have the pictures on the walls, the little china figurines and objets that gave a home its domestic resonance, be ones she chose as his wife. There was less than she recalled; her new home was much grander in scale and so the pieces that had made a homely sense in the smaller house she had shared with Gustav seemed insignificant or paltry in this parlor and study. Still, she found her old walnut bed fit in a unused guest room on the third floor, and her favorite chair, the one Gustav had called her “lady-chair,” now sat beside the unlit hearth, her sewing table nearby. Patty had had paroxysms of joy when Mary set the violet painted basin and pitcher in her room and had given her the little chest of drawers with the patterned paper lining for her small bundle of clothes. Mary had been happiest to unpack her books, all her own old friends, and Gustav’s as well. Jed had been curious and excited to look through the additions to the study. He was very taken with some of the leather-bound scientific texts though he admitted “Chemistry is not my forte but still, how intriguing it is!” He had asked about the stains and spatters he found on some covers but had generally reserved his questions to the content of the works just as he’d asked mostly about the provenance of the sewing table, not what she had made for Gustav there. The dining room had stood empty until just this week when the shining new inlaid table and its eight chairs, their backs curved like a harp, had arrived with the imposing sideboard. She had been even happier when the bed had arrived so soon after she had ordered it. She had felt finally married as they had slept in it, the quilt folded at its foot, but now she thought there were untold ways in which she would need to wed herself to him.

Jed lay in their bed, his body quieted with pleasure, and waited for her. She wondered how many experiences she would have of opening herself to him before it felt there was nothing left of her he did not know, that there was no further way in which she could again marry him. The thought was not frustrating exactly, but evoked a curiosity about how she might measure of what she did not understand—how could she anticipate what else there was to share with him, how prepare herself? She thought the Reverend Abbott at Grace Street Church would say she should pray and wait for God to inform each moment, that He would help her to know what she must do and say at each discovery, but she had studied philosophy and science as much as she was allowed, and even more than was allowed, and she was not satisfied with putting her faith in God alone. Reverend Abbott was not much like the Unitarian ministers she’d known before. He was certainly not like the Reverend March whose sermons, the few she’d attended while she stayed with her distant cousins the Moffats, had been so thoughtful, nature and spirit interwoven so artfully she might mull them over for days afterward and continually find something new and provocative to consider. 

Mary understood she must talk to Jed of her first marriage but that he would not push her or prod. The encounter this morning had brought them each to act in ways, to say such things that they must attend to or risk some rift, not now perhaps, but in days to come. They had made assumptions, each about the other, which had been proven wrong and she wanted only for everything between them to be clear and right. She did not expect him to volunteer much about his marriage to Eliza. Its end had been so unusual, so painful to him despite the freedom it had granted him, that they had both found a complete reluctance to address it. Her body was still humming from his touch. Her mind felt as if it careened from rationality to pure emotion. There was a desire to impose some formal philosophy to what he evoked from her, to what he asked her to speak of, and then just the purity of desire, sated, love insatiable and sustaining. Where might she start? Where would she end? A wedding always made a good beginning, she supposed.

“I was twenty-four when I married Gustav. I had not expected anymore than I would marry, that a man would wish for such a blue-stocking with hardly any dowry. I thought I would end up with Caroline, the spinster aunt who is always there to help with a sick child, to accompany someone somewhere they want to go, regardless of her own wishes. And then Gustav came and I could not believe I was the one he sought out, but he did—he wished to talk to me and take me for walks along the river. He was a kind man and so very bright. He liked that I had read and wanted to learn more. He liked to have a wife who would be a scholar. There was such a fondness between us, the relief of finding acceptance and understanding in another’s eyes. I loved him and we were married, just so. He was the best man I could have hoped to find,” she paused. Jed was only listening, his expression open, his brow unfurrowed. She did not see a gloom of rejection, the acid touch of jealousy on his face. She felt she might go on as she had begun.

“Our… intimacy was very simple—he came to me and I yielded, he enjoyed me and I him. It did not occur to me that it could be other, I felt no lack and no discomfort. In that aspect of our connection, he was the teacher and master and he seemed content. I had heard such complaints from other wives, not Caroline, she had always been happy in her marriage, but women talk as they sew and when they call, you know, they find their ways to tell each other of how uncomfortable or undignified Mr. Brown or Mr. Harrison makes them feel and so I felt only relief and happiness that we appeared so well-matched in every way. There were so many other questions to ask him, about Germany and science, his travels, his experiments—our liveliness was most present in our conversation. He had such a quick wit, such knowledge and yet never did he make me feel less for what I did not know, he was only satisfed that I would think to ask.” She thought back, remembered how it had been, “I began to long for a child, so we made more efforts, but only to come together more often, not in any other way. I didn’t even take a tonic. It seemed I should only be patient and I would be rewarded. Then he started to be ill and that was all I cared about, to see him recover,” she said. 

“Will you tell me more of it, of him? When he was well, how happy you were?” Jed asked carefully. The house was quiet around them, only the sounds of the doves in the eaves; there was still some time before the floors would creak with the Patty’s footsteps, the echo of Mrs. Hutchins in the kitchen drifting up the stairs. Sunlight was starting to pool on the floor, the wood’s variable tones emerging beneath the muslin curtains, in front of the tall bureau.

“Yes, but I think those are not the questions you truly wish to ask. I was happy with him, happy as I had expected to be. We had not very much—you know his title did not carry any wealth. He worked quite hard as a chemist for one mill, consulted to several others. He was much in demand but that did not mean he was paid much more. I kept the house and did some little work, designs, for the mills when they asked. It was a tranquil life, though shortly I wished very much for a child. It had not so very long since we married, I knew I should not be impatient. Do not think it was all harmony-- Gustav could become melancholy, a dark mood would take him and then I found I must first let him be alone for a while, then draw him back with some cleverness. I could be quite lonely in that house all day and then he would not even want to talk to me,” she said. She considered how long they would speak this way; she was aware she was answering some of what Jed wished to know, but was not addressing the crux of things. How many times had he said “only” and “mine,” how he wanted to know his place with her! She moved a little closer to him, but did not touch him. She wanted him to understand her with his mind first, not his body.

“I loved him and if the War had not come, I think I would have remained the widowed Baroness, a little better off perhaps, able to live independently and not at my sister’s expense. Before he died, I had suffered a little; my parents had both died when I was a girl, but I’d had Caroline and it was not so uncommon, my grief had a form. I could manage.” Now, to the heart of it, she must explain herself.

“I was… altered by losing Gustav, I had fought it for so long and then he was gone, gone from me without even a farewell. I fought the grief then, I was a stone and I know Caroline worried so, but I couldn’t care. If I had cried, I thought I must be swept away or, or, the anger would ignite within me. I could sense it, that fury, and so I tried very hard to feel very little. When I heard of Miss Dix’s call, I thought I should find some way to be useful, to risk unleashing myself again. I thought the War could contain anything I might have within me—what could I destroy compared to the destruction already upon us? I think I thought the work would center me, hold me fast to myself again. But I found was not the Mary I had been before. I think she must have died with Gustav. Did you know I nearly struck Mr. Bullen the first day I met him?” At this, he shook his head a little. The image was not humorous since he knew Bullen’s depravity but he could not help but wonder at her. How many times had she shown him how impetuous, how eager for justice she was and yet he had insisted on casting her as narrow and rigid, a prim Duchess when she was Boudicca! “I came to Mansion House and thought I would arrange the hospital, the men, even as Head Nurse, I would be made anew, and everything, everyone there only served to show me how little I knew of myself.” Now, she would pick up his hand and hold it lightly in hers.

“Jedediah, you are my husband, you are the only man I want now—I could not be the wife for Gustav anymore, as dear to me as he was. Our marriage is not lesser in any way than my first. **It** is what I need, you are the one who knows me now, as I am. I have had contentment and I cannot say I would choose it again, that is not who I am anymore. What we have together is what sustains me-- because I need you to challenge me and argue and laugh at me; what I had before would not be enough, though it was ample for the woman I was then. Do you see now, that I am only yours, that no one else has ever made me be Molly?” She would tell him everything, Jed would have no question left. “And when you touch me, it is both utterly new and yet familiar, as if you know exactly what I want even before I do, before I can imagine a desire you are already stoking it. It is not that your passion is reflected in me, but that it calls to me, allows my own to burst forth. I have not been a virgin for some time, but when we are together, I remember that feeling of anticipation, how much I wanted to know—I do not feel you are my teacher, my master, but that we are students together or perhaps we too old for that, we are already the masters… you welcome me as you incite me,” she ended. He was smiling now at how carefully she had explained, how much she wanted him to know. She thought she had made a good job of it, that he now grasped as much as she did herself, of how they had come to this place.

“I would say you have shamed me with your honesty, Molly, how you have answered all I could have asked and even more, but I know you will not like it to be said that way. So, I think I should say that you have the greatest gift, how you will keep looking until you find the truth of it, whatever it is, and yet you are such a dear, clever, brilliant girl. You are more than I deserve, it’s true, sweetheart,” he said as he saw her about to demur, “but it is so good to be with you, I will do everything to make sure you are happy, even though I am old enough to know I will fail,” he laughed a little. He imagined her at twenty-four, himself thirty-five. Her face would have been nearly the same, though he saw it framed in a flowered bonnet, the straw brim like a halo in an early Renaissance painting. Her eyes would have been little troubled, but she would still have had her clear, searching gaze.

“Thank God you had not met me earlier, even though I spent so many nights before we married wishing for it, wishing all our other history away, but it would not have worked at all—you would have found me an unmitigated ass-- yes, yes, you would” as she shook her head no, “If I had met you when you were twenty-four, what a fiasco! And rightly so, you would have seen through me, my colossal arrogance, yes, I know that has not gotten much better, but not only that, my self-righteousness and all my many petty faults were so great, I can only imagine what you would have made of me,” he paused, considering. “I have needed a crucible to become your husband… I have needed, though I didn’t want it, to find a way through my suffering without only my medical career as a prop, to be not only your husband, but the man I ought to have been, even though my family and my countrymen had told me different. Life has humbled me, never you, even though I accused you of it. Never you, Molly, but I have needed to be taught that lesson again and again—I will hope you may be the only teacher of it left, as you are kind and do not rap knuckles or box ears… perhaps I shall also get a looking-glass to see my own faults for what they are without you needing to do much else,” he said, giving her a look of loving approval and amusement.

Then, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, where his beard ended and the skin was soft, a saucy peck where once she would have only raised her eyebrows at him and tilted her head. He reached out for her as she went to lie back, his hand around her cheek, his fingers warm against her scalp under the heavy mass of curls. He spoke again, his voice deeper, using the voice she wanted in the night, next to her ear, when his hands were upon her.

“And oh, Molly, I am so happy to be a student with you in this bed, to show you what I have already learned, but I think we may find there are so many more delights for us, so many ways for me to love you,” and he brought her mouth to his to kiss her softly. Then she laid her head against his chest and they were quiet a few minutes. She did not look up when he started speaking again, but enjoyed his low, even voice and the vibration of it against her cheek.

“I want it to be clear, Molly—I am not jealous of Gustav, of what you shared with him. I can tell from your words, from your tone, how you loved him and how he cherished you. I suppose I could be jealous of that, but I find I am not… I am just happy that you had someone who loved you so well before we met. I do not want you to feel you may never speak of that time—what a loss if there was any part of you cut off from me! I am not sure always what questions might bring you sorrow, which a pleasant memory, so you must tell me if I err. I have wondered where you have stored the daguerreotype of him you had at Mansion House and whether there were more of your old things you wished to have about the house. It would not distress me to see the picture on your secretary or wherever else you might choose,” he said gently. She heard the sincerity in him and the acceptance. She thought she would never place the picture in this room, their retreat. But it would be more sweet than bitter to have the image in its silver frame among her other possessions, the picture of Caroline with her two older boys, the little dish that held Sister Isabella’s rosary, at the rosewood secretary-desk where she did her accounts and correspondence.

“Thank you. I hadn’t thought it fitting, but I should like to see it sometimes. Are there any of your things you would like me to put in the parlor or your study, perhaps?” she said. She thought she knew how he would respond but she felt she must ask.

“No. There is nothing I want from that house,” his voice short now and she heard the effort he was making to answer her question as he had said he would. The pain was right underneath the words, cutting him as a rocky harbor tore at a ship’s hull. “That is, I have the books I brought from Mansion House and what I wanted from my room there. I would rather see your things or perhaps we may find some new things together. There is a wall in the study that seems bare and could do with a picture. I think there is a new gallery lately opened and Jonathan said they even had had some paintings from Paris and London. There might be something likely there and it would be a pleasant outing even if there is nothing for us, don’t you think?” he finished. He had settled himself down with the prospective visit to the gallery, the vision of walking down the street with their bright shop windows. Mary would be in her finest bonnet and the light walking coat that kept the dust from her pale, flowered dress, her gloved hand held in his. She supposed it would be some time before he could speak of his marriage, but she thought the day would come, by-and-by. She listened to his heart as it beat within him, so strong and dear, and she felt his hand steal to her waist again.

They lay quietly for another quarter of an hour, in the place before sleep, dreamy together. Then Mary heard Patty in the hall and sat up a little, startled, “We will never be down for breakfast in time, the clock has chimed the half-hour already.” She thought of Mrs. Hutchins in the kitchen at the stove and Patty moving about the house with her little cap and pinafore, all the morning chores being done while they lay in this white and gold room. Jed stretched beside her and she saw the lovely line of him pulled taut, the sheet dipping lower, his hipbone momentarily sharp before the muscle settled over it again. She felt the urge in her palm to lay it against his abdomen and then that was shaken away with the clatter of Patty at the foot of the stairs, the little thump-thump of her boots on the oak floors.

“Molly, it is Saturday and you are the mistress of this house. If you wish to stay in bed a little later, there is no one to gainsay you,” he said, chuckling a little as he roused.

“Oh, well, I suppose,” she replied, unconvinced; sometimes he thought she was more Scotch Presbyterian than he was, despite her Unitarian upbringing. He liked to see her thus, a little distracted, she did not even try to adjust her nightdress, which bared one white shoulder and the décolletage for an evening gown.

“Well, if you are the mistress, I am the master. I will call for a tray and then, I think, a bath as well,” he said, starting to rise from the bed.

“Jedediah! Whatever will Patty and Mrs. Hutchins think?” Mary exclaimed. He walked about the room naked and she thought he might simply shout for the breakfast tray to tease her. Mrs. Hutchins was surely laying the table, already setting down the coffee pot, the cups in their saucers. The little pitcher would be full of fresh milk, nearly invisible, so closely matched to the rich cream of the china.

“I will not scandalize anyone, Molly. Let me only put on some clothes and I will meet Patty in the hall. You should stay in bed and rest a while longer,” he said as he put on trousers, a linen shirt, braces. His hair was ruffled and his neck a little wet where he had splashed some water on his face. She relaxed a little, then sat upright in the bed as he walked into the hallway barefoot and called loudly, “Patty, Patty! Mrs. Foster and I will have breakfast on a tray in our room today. And ask Mrs. Hutchins to prepare a hot bath as well!”

“Jedediah Foster!” Mary burst out. They were no longer at Mansion House when the War excused many indecorous behaviors. She imagined she could hear Mrs. Hutchins’s guffaw of shocked laughter and Patty’s little gasp, even as he neatly closed the door.

“Oh, Molly, you worry too much. Patty worships you and Mrs. Hutchins think she is the mistress and you her eldest daughter, I shouldn’t wonder. I’ve seen her nod at you so as you sit so prettily at the table—I halfway expect her to call you “dear Mary” when you ask her about the day’s deliveries and tell you to hurry off to your governess. At least, let me play the demanding master if I may not be the scoundrel in your bedchamber,” he said, making a piratical dive towards her that she fended off easily. He sat back on the edge of the bed and let the braces drop back down. Mary’s cheeks with pink with some little embarrassment and he thought, an indulgent amusement at his antics.

“Well, you shall need to be very formal I think, to make up for that shameful breach of propriety. And I shall as well-- I must spend the afternoon at my dratted needlepoint now, and not my mathematics, thank you very much, or Mrs. Hutchins will think this is the household of a libertine!” she said, playing a bit at being put out but admitting to herself she should present a calm and gracious demeanor to restore equilibrium to their little household. Perhaps she might attend to her correspondence and read the new German book that had arrived. Mrs. Hutchins seemed to think less of the French than the Germans, based on the volume and frequency of her sniffs when she’d found Mary reading _Eugenie Grandet_ earlier in the week and not Goethe.

“Well, then, I will be very formal and wear my dark suit when I take you for a walk on the Common this evening and nod at every neighbor, just so,” here he mimicked and she laughed aloud, “A tray in our room and mathematics makes us libertines—heaven help us! I must bathe you myself then as long as I am tarred so and that will be a very enjoyable start to this day before I try to knock some sense into those cadets before noon.” He gave her a cheeky look, the boy she had never met, and an off-center kiss, his beard a little rough at the corner of her mouth. Patty gave a little knock at the door and he shrugged the braces back up to answer, rising to stand stiffly and glowering a bit to set Patty at ease, her expectations of brusque Dr. Foster matching his expression, except in his gleeful eyes. Patty never looked at his face and Mary did, so it was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story in the same Mercy March universe, though only Reverend March makes a brief appearance via a memory. I wanted to explore how Jed and Mary married and what their early marriage looked liked but also how they would grapple with it being their second marriage. I have purposely been obscure about the end of Jed's marriage-- that is another story. Caroline Phinney and Jonathan Harris are visiting from the "Not words" universe and even Mr. Squivers gets a shout-out. This story is a gift for the wonderful emmadelosnardos who is chiefly responsible for me writing all these stories-- based on her own lovely writing and even more, her continual encouraging comments and general all-around awesomeness. If somehow you are reading this story first, read everything else she had written next, then you can come back to me :) BTW, the title is from a poem by John Donne, my other go-to for titles besides the divine Miss Dickinson.


End file.
